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The delight of the nursing mother, of the scholar, of the successful hunter, of the good cook, of the skilful maker, of anyone doing needed work and doing it well, – this durable joy is perhaps the deepest source of human affection and of sociality as a whole.

Ursula K. Le Guin

Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Delight Freedom Use Way Winter Word
Odonianism is anarchism. Not the bomb-in-the-pocket stuff, which is terrorism, whatever name it tries to dignify itself with, not the social-Darwinist economic ‘libertarianism’ of the far right; but anarchism, as prefigured in early.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Anarchism Bomb Darwinist Economic Itself Liberal Name Odonianism Pocket Social Stuff Terrorism Tries
I do not care what comes after; I have seen the dragons on the wind of morning.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

After Care Come Dragon Morning Seen Wind
It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

End Good Journey Matters Towards
The performance is silent. The readers hear the sounds of the words and the beat of the sentences only in their inner ear. Silent drummers on noiseless drums. An amazing performance in an amazing theater.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Amazing Drummer Ebit Noiseless Performance Raeder Sentence Silent Theatre
As men have done to women, and class has done to class, and nation has done to nation – you may hate it or deify it; but in either case you have denied its spiritual equality and its human reality.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Class Done Human Nation Reality Series Women
Those who build walls are their own prisoners. I’m going to go fulfill my proper function in the social organism. I’m going to unbuild walls.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Build Own Prison Wall
For all their restlessness, men are who they are; once they put on the man’s toga they will not change again; so they make a virtue of that rigidity and resist whatever might soften it and set them free.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Again Change Free Man Resist Restless Rigidly Soften Virtue
You are in the country where you make up the rules, the laws. You are both dictator and obedient populace. It is a country nobody has ever explored before. It is up to you to make the maps, to build the cities.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Build City Country Dictator Explore Map Obedient Populace Rule
A panda walks into a tea room and ordered a salad and ate it. Then it pulled out a pistol, shot the man in the next table dead, and walked out.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Ate Dead Man Next Order Out Panda Pistol Pull Room Salad Shot Table Tea Walk
Nobody who says, ‘I told you so’ has ever been, or will ever be, a hero.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Been Ever Hero Nobody Say Told
No darkness lasts forever. And even there, there are stars.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Darkness Forever Last Star
If a book told you something when you were fifteen, it will tell you it again when you’re fifty, though you may understand it so differently that it seems you’re reading a whole new book.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Again Book Differently Fifteen Fifty Raed Seem Something Tell Understand
In the tale, in the telling, we are all one blood. Take the tale in your teeth, then, and bite till the blood runs, hoping it’s not poison; and we will all come to the end together, and even to the beginning: living, as we do, in the middle.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Bite Blood Come End Hope Live Middle Position Run Take Tale Telling
My world, my Earth is a ruin. A planet spoiled by the human species. We multiplied and fought and gobbled until there was nothing left, and then we died.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Earth Human Planet Run Species Spoil World
The two imperatives can no longer coexist with each other; nor can any society founded on the myth that they can be reconciled hope to survive.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Coexist Each Found Hope Imperative Longer Myth Other Reconcile Silence Society

The delight of the nursing mother, of the scholar, of the successful hunter, of the good cook, of the skilful maker, of anyone doing needed work and doing it well, – this durable joy is perhaps the deepest source of human affection and of sociality as a whole.

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Popular Authors

The delight of the nursing mother, of the scholar, of the successful hunter, of the good cook, of the skilful maker, of anyone doing needed work and doing it well, – this durable joy is perhaps the deepest source of human affection and of sociality as a whole.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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